This is an old revision of the document!

Hosting craft

This page is an overview of facilitation and hosting techniques practiced at FoAM for over a decade.

With thanks to Maggie Buxton, Simone Poutnik, Hendrik Tiessinga (and others from The Art of Hosting community), Nick Payne, Ineke Van Mulders, Edel Maex, Christina Stadlbauer, Helga Hartl and many others who have facilitated workshops, held trainings and retreats through which we experienced the practice and the craft of hosting and facilitation.

Session 1: Hosting, craft and the Host

Why call sessions about facilitation methods a craft? Because it is a practice, you can only learn it by doing. It is said that by the time you put in 10.000 hours, you can consider yourself to have mastered the basics. It is also artisanal, hand-made, customised for each occasion, never the same.

Facilitation, moderation, process guide, dialogue coaching and hosting. Hosting might capture this practice best: it is a service of being a host to a group of people - welcoming people into a place, making them feel at ease. As a good host, you pay attention to everyone's needs and make sure everyone's involved.

Dinner party

Exercise: If you think of a good dinner party:

  • How would you describe the host? write their characteristics and actions in a connected 'cloud' (e.g. a host is kind, energetic, perceptive, prepared, able to improvise on the spot, anticipates the guests needs, brings people together, designs the flow, guides conversations…)
  • What are the elements of a good dinner party? Make a list of key elements needed for a good dinner party (e.g. people, atmosphere, refreshments, flow, good conversation, energising group dynamics…)

Visualise a cloud of characteristics and actions of the host and another one of key elements of a dinner party.

Hosting workshops or meetings isn't too different from hosting a dinner party. The role of the host in both is to:

  • welcome guests
  • set the atmosphere
  • frame and guide conversations
  • make sure everyone is introduced to each other
  • encourage networking
  • resolve conflicts
  • manage flow and timing
  • wrap-up
  • send people home when it's time
  • conclude and follow-up.

A few key things to think about when hosting

  • People (host, participants)
  • Content, conversation topics
  • Flow
  • Space/Atmosphere
  • Refreshments
The Host

Every hosting session starts with the host, his/her presence. The host's inner and outer appearance can set the tone of the meeting. The frame of mind of a host can influence how the participants feel as well. If you're stressed or worried, this will carry into their conversations as well. It's important to take time to let your worries and moods go. The host is like a river bed that gives shape to the water (the flow of the conversations) an entity through which everything flows. If your 'river bed' consists of big mental boulders and emotional dams, the flow will be interrupted, steered away from its course, staled or rushed.

Begin a hosting session by making sure you're comfortable with yourself, the room, the format and the topics chosen. This begins with a good preparation, well in advance. When you arrive to the meeting spot, you should be confident in your plan. Even with good preparation, we all get nervous before a 'performance' It might be necessary for you to find a way to ground yourself, to 'cleanse' your body and mind, as well as the room you're in from anything that has come before this moment.

Exercise: Think about one or more small rituals that can help you feel at ease in the space and with yourself. For example:

  • a simple 3 minute breathing exercise: begin with asking yourself “what am I demanding from myself and others at this moment?” watch what arises in your mind and observe your reactions for about a minute. Then let go of your thoughts and breathe deeply, at least 10 breaths. Breathing out, you let go of your demands, breathing in, you feel fresh and open.
  • a longer 10-15 minute meditation: start with focusing your attention on your breath, then your whole body, the envelope of your body and its connection to the air, the air in the room, the sounds that the air brings to your ears, (what you can see without looking), the whole room and everything in it, and expand your attention to infinity, that includes the people you're hosting, their mind-states and expectations, then finally return to your body and your breath.

Aside from the inner presence, the outer presence - your appearance is as important. to begin with, your posture: try having a conversation while leaning in, sitting straight and comfortable, or hanging back, draped over a chair. How does each of the postures change your conversant's perception of your interest? Leaning in too much might drain your energy quicker, as you're probably forgetting to include yourself; leaning back might give your partner the feeling that you don't care and leave them alone to solve their problems; crossing your arms on your chest makes you feel distant and reserved, etc. Experiment with it and check with yourself while you're hosting - “how am I sitting/standing now?” and correct if necessary, until you feel present, centred and comfortable. Facial expressions are equally important as posture. If you feel tense, try lifting the corners of your mouth into a smile and see how that feels. Combined with one slow breath can do wonders in a tense situation, and it takes only 1-2 seconds. Watch what you do with your hands: are they relaxed in your lap, or wildly gesticulating, or something in between? You can use your hands to accentuate a point you're trying to make, or to involve people in the conversation. In tense situations, touch can be helpful (a little pat on the shoulder, or a light brush on the arm…) - but touch can also be perceived as too intimate, or culturally unacceptable, so you have to be careful to judge when it's ok to touch and when not.

Finally, what might seem frivolous - think about what you are going to wear. The lines of the clothing (angular and strict, flowing and relaxed, messy and playful…) and their colours can have an impact on the mood of the conversation as well. There are colour theories that you can look at, but you can also intuitively check with yourself what colours resonate with you - this will help you at least get in the right frame of mind.

Session 2: The participants

The participants

The participants will necessarily have different character traits. They might be outgoing, team-spirits, introvert, rebellious, contrarian… There are people who like to take over conversations, and others who are silent, some listen, others don't. Depending on their characters, they will assume a different role in the group. There is always someone in the group who will be more difficult, or less involved. You might see them as people who make your job difficult, but be aware that these roles are necessary to have an interesting group dynamics. If everyone was always pliant and agreeable, they would never challenge the status quo and there wouldn't be much conversation. So it's important not to 'scapegoat' difficult individuals, but to see them as an important part of a dynamic system. It's interesting to observe that when you remove one of these 'difficult' individuals, someone else will assume the 'difficult' role.

If you have a chance to decide who is invited, take this opportunity to “design the group” that will include a diversity of people's interests and characters. An interesting way to do it, if you know the people involved is to look at every person and find at least two people with whom they share interests or expertise. At the end you should have a closed loop, with densely interconnected relationships.

Communication

However, even in a well thought trough invitee list, you still don't know what will happen. It is the hosts' task to observe the group dynamics as it is developing and to steer it gently, or a bit less gently if the conversations are going off-track, or in circles, or if some people dominate the conversations for too long. The words gentle and patient are crucial here. Think about how children react to a calm or an abrupt interruption of something they shouldn't be doing. The same principle applies in hosting. Only in rare occasions do you put people on the spot, most often you invite, suggest, offer different options, without forcing people to do anything (otherwise they might rebel…). For example:

  • how about we pause this conversation for now and return to …, we will continue this thread in our next session/over lunch…
  • I invite you to… / Let's / (Rather than You now have to…)
  • I'd like to suggest to…

Another important aspect of hosting is observation. It is your task to observe if people are engaged. You can see this not only in how they speak, but also in their facial expression, posture, eye movements… Most of us have an intuition that tells us if someone is paying attention to us speaking.

Exercise in pairs: Tell me a story

  • Take turns to tell a story. First person A talks, while person B listens. In the next round, person A continues to talk, but person B stops listening. Reverse roles after this round. Discuss your findings in the larger group.

Having an intuition about people's attention helps decide when to let the conversations take their course, when to step up, calm things down or take them sideways.

A course that can help develop your own communication skills and be more aware of how others communicate: Mindfulness in Communication by Edel Maex in Antwerp. Maex uses a tool he calls “Communication compass” in this course, to be able to talk about communication. 

perspective of the other
	  |

information ——o—— experience 

	  |
  my own perspective

A good conversation is somewhere in the centre of the two axes. If you place yourself too much on either side of the perspective axis, the conversation will become a monologue (sometimes this can happen even if both people are speaking, e.g. in a conflict where both people are convinced that they are 'right' about something can close the communication channels, and put you too much in the 'my own perspective' camp.

Exercise in pairs: describe yourself, speaking as:

  • a person who is very close to you
  • a person with whom you have a problematic relationship.

The horizontal range is a continuum between information and experience. The two are often confused, for example when a person describe their own experience as 'objective information', which often happens with statements such as “This is like that”, but it actually means “I have experienced this as that”. The latter statement gives an opening to the perspective of the other person. This happens often in schools: the teacher presents everything they say as 'objective information', while some of it might be their own experience (or inexperience). When a student raises their hand to disagree, the teacher retreats to 'my own perspective', that is again presented as information “i am a teacher, so what i say is true”. It's also important to listen whether people want to hear information or experience: for example the question “what is wrong” should be answered differently if you are a plumber or a nurse in intensive care.

Exercise in pairs: tell each other 2 stories (Person A tells story 1, person B listens; reverse roles, then move onto story 2):

  • job description, focusing only on listing tasks that you do as part of your job
  • describe how you feel at your work.

Compare notes in the group. How do you talk when you describe facts/emotions? How is it to listen to the different topics and ways of communicating them?

As a conversation host, you can be the compass for the group and pay attention where the conversation is going, paying attention to people's perspectives, as well as noting whether information and experience are being confused. It is crucial for you to remain open and aware, regardless of whether you agree with the topics or directions of the conversation (remember, you're just a river bed letting the flow pass over you!). You can just steer the conversation back to the centre of the compass, by pointing to things people said and asking e.g. “is this a fact, or your opinion”, “thank you for sharing your view, would you mind hearing how mr X sees the same situation?”

In most participatory meetings the conversations should be dialogues, rather than debates. Edel Maex describes this as:

  • dialogue: who are you, who am I, what are our views, and what is the vision that surpasses (or builds on) our distinct views
  • debate: this is me and this is you, this is my view and this is yours. in a debate people come out as winners or losers, or through a compromise where everyone supposedly wins, but the vision is lost (aka belgisch compromis / poldermodel).

When designing your meeting/workshop/conversation, think about what is important for the group, in order to know whether you want to steer towards a dialogue or a debate.

“In communicatie maak je jezelf kwetsbaar, in een machtstrijd niet”

Throughout the session you're hosting, you should observe how the communication unfolds, look for signs of loss of attention, skewed perspectives, mixing experiences and facts, and keep an eye on how the collective vision is developing.

Icebreaking

Whoever comes through the door, has come from somewhere else, and this somewhere else has necessarily an impact on how they will participate in the conversations. It needs to be acknowledged that just by walking into a space people haven't necessarily arrived. It's important to have at least 10-15 minutes with no 'content', where people can have a drink, engage in small-talk, go to the toilet…

The moment of gathering the group together is always a bit awkward. You can use a clear sound signal (a bell, a gong, a tea spoon on a glass…), or just project your voice and invite people to come to the space where your session will take place and pause their conversations.

To begin, it's good to have a short “check-in” or “ice-breaking” session. In this session it is your task to help people really arrive, meaning that they should let go of whatever came before and focus on being fully present now with the people in the room, committed to each other and the process. There are many ways to do this, and it depends on your group how you choose to do it. It helps to do something “physical”, but it isn't necessary. What's important is to give everyone a chance to introduce themselves and to see each other as fellow humans, regardless of their social standing, place in a hierarchy, or a job title. A few examples:

  • “How are you?”
  • “Shake off your worries and expectations”
  • “Introduce yourself in 3 keywords”
  • Sociometry exercises - “How old are you”, “Where do you come from”, “Touch the person you've known the longest”…
  • “Choose a new name”
  • “Pick a plant and describe why”
  • “Describe your inner weather”
  • “Pick an animal that resonates with your character and describe it”
  • “Pick a word that describes what you're passionate about”
  • …

Exercise: Everyone hosts one or two ice-breaking sessions. At the end of each ice-breaker, discuss about the effects of the exercises (what worked, what didn't, when should it be used…).

Next session 20131031: framing, designing questions, hosting conversations

References

A few experiments that we at FoAM scavenged and adapted from various methods

  • hosting_craft.1378745156.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2013-09-09 16:45
  • by maja